38 council houses approved for village after 10 years

By Elgan Hearn, Local Democracy Reporter

Powys councillors have unanimously backed plans to build a council housing estate in the village of Churchstoke.

The proposal by Powys County Council itself for 38 dwellings for “social rent” at land next to Fir House, was in front of members of the Planning Committee this week.

The site is situated on the south-eastern edge of Churchstoke and is currently a green field site that is bounded to the north-east by the A489 trunk road.

It emerged in October last year that a new detailed but smaller proposal had been lodged with county planners. It has taken the council 10 years to get to this position.

Previous versions of the proposal, which were first proposed in 2016, had been for 45 homes to be built at the site.

In January 2017, an outline planning application was approved by councillors on the Planning Committee.

This means that the principle for building on the site has been agreed – but the details of the scheme still need to be submitted and agreed in a further planning application.

Since then, there have been problems developing the site, which has seen the need to extend the time limit allowed for the development.

The new reserved matters proposal explains that 10 of the houses will have one-bedroom, 10 two-bedrooms, eight would be for three-bedrooms and two would have four-bedrooms.

The remaining eight dwellings are set to be bungalows, four with one-bedroom and four with two-bedrooms.

Principal Planning Officer, Lorraine Jenkin, who presented the report on the application, recommended that councillors approved the proposal.

Cllr Adrian Jones (Conservative – Berriew and Castle Caereinion) said: “Where is the footpath? “In my memory it’s on the opposite side of the road.”

He asked if a crossing would be provided to allow residents to get to the footpath on the other side of the road?

“I just find it a bit strange,” said Cllr Jones.

Traffic and Travel Manager, Tony Caine, answered: “There will be a footpath on both sides of the road. There will be a new footpath put in on this side going in to the village and towards the Tuffins/Co-Op (shopping centre) facility. That will connect with existing footways on that side.”

Cllr Gareth E Jones said that he was happy with proposal but wanted a condition to be clarified.

This is around when planning permission for the development is due to expire.

Condition one says that that council need to start building the housing estate within two years of receiving this planning approval or five years from the date of that the outline planning permission expires: “whichever is longer.”

The outline planning permission deadline is March 2029.

Cllr Jones (Powys Independents – Llanelwedd) said: “I’m just being picky; can we just limit this to one date and make it March 2029.”

“We don’t really need the two years one – when I read it, it just confused me a little bit.”

Ms Jenkin said: “Those two dates are relevant to that condition.”

Cllr Jones said he was “happy” to leave the condition as it is because the deadline to start development will be March 2029 in any case.

The committee then went to a vote which saw all 10 councillors in the meeting vote to approve the application.